ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Men's Basketball took another step toward securing a spot in the MAC Freedom Tournament with a 75-72 win over the visiting King's College Monarchs. The Eagles used a 21-0 run to build a 17-point first-half lead, but the Monarchs battled back and had a shot to tie the game at the buzzer.

"The first thing is this," Head Coach Eric McNelley said after the game. "They [King's]are a very tough team to play against. They have good players and have been in every game this year. They competed hard today."

Neither team could get much going early. Nearly six minutes had elapsed when Tyler Millan hit the first of his five 3-pointers on the afternoon to put the Monarchs up 6-3. Millan answered a Victor Peña layup with another 3-pointer for a 9-5 King's lead.

At that point, everything started to go right for the Eagles (13-8, 8-2 MAC Freedom). Tarek Hamzeh hit an open 3-pointer on a pass from Austin Carroll to start the decisive run. The Eagles made five-consecutive 3-point attempts and scored 21 points on eight possessions to lead 26-9.

Hamzeh, had 11 points on four shots in the burst. Anthony Concepcion and Shaquan Turk each had 3-pointers in the stretch, and Abraham Kurnick had a pair of inside baskets.

The Eagles made 6-of-9 3-pointers in the first half, but King's (5-16, 1-9 MAC Freedom) answered with an 8-0 run toward the end of the half to go to the locker room trailing 32-23.

"We were very good defensively in stretches of the first half," McNelley added, "but there were times in the game where we had a chance to really grab control, and we missed those opportunities. That run at the end of the first half changed the game. "

Hamzeh led all scorers with 13 points on perfect 4-of-4 from the floor and 3-of-3 from the line. Kunick was the only other Eastern player with more than one made basket. He had four points.

The Eagles had another chance when Peña and Turk hit 3-pointers in an eight-point run to put the Eagles up 40-25 with 18 minutes to go, but again, the Monarchs ground away at the Eastern lead.

King's shot 6-of-11 from 3-point range en-route to a 49 point second half. In the first game between the two teams in Wilkes-Barre, two players, Dan Rutecki and Connor Callejas combined for 53 of the team's 64 points. The Eagles held those two players to 15 points, but the rest of the Monarchs, led by Millan with 21, made shots.

King's cut the Eastern lead to a single possession ten times in the final eight minutes. Each time the Eagles had an answer. Turk scored 11 of his 18 points in the final seven minutes. Fellow senior Austin Carroll had seven in that same stretch. Carroll had a steal and breakaway to put the Eagles up 58-52 and a tough three-point play for a 63-58 lead with four minutes left.

Turk hit what turned out to be the biggest basket of the game with a minute and a half to play. King's had trimmed the deficit 67-66 on a Millan layup. Turk took a high handoff from Peña and drained a 23-footer for a four-point lead.

The Eagles made six-of-seven free throws down the stretch to hold a three-point lead with four seconds to play. Callejas attempted a contested 3-pointer at the buzzer.

"We made some big plays down the stretch," McNelley said. "I think each of the guys realizes that we need to execute better throughout the game, but our two seniors made some clutch plays at the end."

Turk led the Eagles with 18 points. Carroll and Peña each had 12. Turk moved into the seventh spot on Eastern's career-scoring list with 1,561. He also blocked four shots to reach 100 for his career.

With the win, Eastern will have a winning record in MAC Freedom Play for the first time since 2012. The Eagles remain tied with Delaware Valley one game ahead of DeSales. Misericordia and Wilkes are tied for fourth in the league with four games to play.

The Eagles play at FDU-Florham on Wednesday.